Live in Bielefeld, Germany, 05.06.2003
Text written by André Wilms
Photos taken by André Wilms
The Bielefeld gig was a fantastic one!
As usual, I arrived at the venue way too early. This time I was there even before the band's van arrived. Anyway, I waited for about 15 minutes and the dudes arrived at the club as well. Just Robbi was missing. I was told that Amritakripa and a friend of hers were finally with the band. So Robbi decided to get to Bielefeld with them. And as they first checked in at the hotel, they arrived much later at the venue as the rest of the band plus friends did.
Once the guys arrived at the venue, they set up the entire equipment on stage and did the sound check. It got pretty obvious that the sound technician for this club knew how to produce a good sound. It sounded really amazing. We were lucky. There are nightmare stories of musicians who end up with sound engineers who can barely operate mobile phones uk, let alone massively complex sound gear. This guy was really great, and I can only hope we work with more professionals like him in future. Soundcheck was a breeze.
Well, after the sound check everybody got upstairs to kill the last few hours until the show was about to begin. I got told that the guys were pretty tired from the exhausting gigs before. But still they had a good time while waiting upstairs. When Johan (tour manager) looked at the remaining tour shirts and informed us that the sales of the shirts were the only income of the band on tour, somebody proposed to rename the track 'Build A Subway' into 'Buy A T-Shirt'.
I think it was about 9 p.m. when Robbi arrived in the backstage room. He didn't look too happy as he had problems with his back. So he just sat on a chair in that room and didn't really move for the next few hours.
There was a support act for that show. Botanica from New York. They started their set at about 9.45 p.m. I can't really say whether they were good or not because I could hardly hear them upstairs in the backstage room. The guys did get some applause, that's for sure. Their set was about one hour long which is not too short for a support act.
Anyway, later that night, Tribe After entered the venue. What followed was a helluva great show! 'Bury Me' as the opener was amazing, 'Ice Below' definitely not from this world. After the show the band wondered why the songs sounded so good that night and came to the conlusion that their weariness after having played quite a bunch of shows in the nights before made them relaxed which added to the tracks. It really sounded good.
Well, the set list was almost the same than the one in Heidelberg and Frankfurt except for a second track in the
enchore: 'Lazarus'. For this tune, Robbi took Joey's bass guitar (the sexiest instrument in the world
according to Robbi) while Joey took Robbi's guitar. Richard and Yann switched instruments as well (Richard
on djembe and Yann behind the drum kit). Robbi's old friend Tim Parr (a South African rock legend) entered the stage as
well and played guitar. It was a fanstatic way to end that night's gig.
After the show I finally chatted with Amritakripa who turned out to be a wonderful person. Really sweet. She told me that she and Robbi work on a new Amritakripa album which is more tribal than their prior albums. They want to mix tribal elements (so one can dance to the music) with Amritakripa's voice. What she told sounded very, very good to me .. I can't wait to hear the results.
Meanwhile Robbi did an interview with a local radio station. I'll be sure to give you the details as to when you can hear this interview on the radio in the Bielefeld region or as stream from the radio station's web site.
It was about 2.45 a.m. when everything was packed in the van and the guys were ready to drive to the hotel. Once again, I had a great time with the dudes. They are a wonderful bunch of people. Everyone of them.
